


[vid] brave new world

by kaydeefalls



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Be Careful What You Wish For, Buffy Wishverse, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Embedded Video, Fanvids, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>How do you know the other world is any better than this?</em> A Wishverse vid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[vid] brave new world

**Author's Note:**

> Music: Theme from "Rosemary's Baby", by Krsysztof Komeda  
> Download: [Mediafire](http://www.mediafire.com/download/cr8y5zzdlizc5y8/wishverse_kaydeefalls.mov) (.mov, 37 MB)

[brave new world (Buffy fanvid)](http://vimeo.com/75607337) from [kaydee falls](http://vimeo.com/user1936478) on [Vimeo](https://vimeo.com).

 **Vidding meta:**  
This was very much an experiment for me as a vidder. I've done plenty of character vids, but never a specific episode-focused vid in any fandom, so that's a different sort of storytelling -- although, for me, it all comes back to the characters anyway, because that's what I find so fascinating about "The Wish" as an episode. It's on my shortlist for top five best episodes of Buffy, hands down, despite utilizing a trope that I normally hate (no one remembers what happened at the end, negating any lessons that might have been learnt). But there are very much in-universe ramifications of this experience -- vamp!Willow's return, Anya's entire character arc -- and vastly more interesting to me, the Wishverse reveals quite a lot about the characters and the world they inhabit. WILLOW, jesus christ, there is so much foreshadowing for her future character arc in this episode, holy shit. ("Bored now." And for the record, I pulled that audio clip from "The Wish" and then was kind of amazed that it matched up so perfectly with the video clip from "Villains", a full three seasons later.)

The Wishverse is an alternate universe, yes -- but it's completely in character for every single person affected. Wishverse!Buffy may look like a humorless parody of Faith at that particular moment in the show (mid-season 3), but we already know that our Buffy does have that potential for hardness, for shutting down emotion, for a joyless devotion to death. This episode just brings those hints to the fore. (And again, goddamn, let's talk about the foreshadowing for her arc in seasons 5 and 6. For real, the Wishverse is like a fucking S6 trailer, except with way more vampires and less Spike.) Wishverse!Angel is perpetually stuck in that immediately pre-Buffy flashback we saw in "Becoming Part 1" -- cringing, ineffectual, not coping at all with his soul, but with vast reserves of endurance, determined to stay alive if only for his continuing need for atonement. (Redemption hasn't even begun to enter the picture here.) Wishverse!Xander is all of the shittiest elements of S1 Xander given free reign -- and now he's finally the coolest kid in school. And god, Wishverse!Giles just breaks my heart, and I don't even want to talk about that any more. Also, I definitely get some AtS!Cordy foreshadowing out of this episode -- learning compassion, and incredibly painful visions of a possible future.

I'd originally wanted to look at Oz and Larry more, but frankly, their arcs are less interesting in the Wishverse -- Larry doesn't have much of a viddable arc in general (bully to openly gay to death in battle is a cool story, but not many viddable moments), and Oz's arc is almost entirely wrapped up in Willow, and not in ways that I find terribly revealing in terms of his character. Also, there wound up being less Angel than I'd expected -- his character reveals in the Wishverse are way more about who he was before Buffy than who he becomes after her, which limited me. Although I am a little sad I couldn't find the space to juxtapose his Wishverse death with Buffy stabbing him and sending him to hell at the end of S2, because holy visual parallels, Batman. Ah, well, there wasn't room for everything.

So, BLATHER and FEELINGS is why this vid happened, basically. Also I wanted to try actually telling a horror story (not my usual or preferred genre) -- the Wishverse is pretty horrifying to begin with, but the really scary part to me is that question asked: "How do you know the other world is any better than this?" And is it really? Is Giles's leap of faith justified? (Yes, it is. Mostly.) It took me a while to find the right music -- I'd originally wanted the lullaby from "Pan's Labyrinth", but none of the versions of it on the soundtrack were quite right (either overly orchestrated or too strangely hopeful). So I wound up doing a google search for "creepy lullaby", basically (among other tries: "eerie ambient music", "horror soundtrack", etc). I liked Sakara's song from "The Ring", but too short, and a little too on the nose. But man, "Rosemary's Baby", still one of the scariest fucking movies ever, and that fucking lullaby, holy shit. The weirdness/creepiness of the vid also let me experiment with color and saturation and lighting effects -- the Wishverse is all desaturated, not quite black-and-white (you can just barely glimpse the blue of Cordelia's dress, the red of Willow's hair, the green flash of the pendant); "real world" flashbacks are in normal color; future foreshadowing is over-exposed, a bit painfully bright. I dunno how effective it is, but it was fun to play with.

ANYWAY. So this is my strange creepy little experimental vid.


End file.
